We spent the first few days of our trip visiting family and friends. On our way out of Florida, we stopped to visit the Southerner’s mom in Destin, where this happened:

Apparently, this little bird mistook my sexy, boat-hair for its nest. It came flying out of nowhere, went straight for my head and would not let go. The Southerner took about 100 photos before he finally agreed to dislodge those tightly latched talons. I’m pretty sure it peed on me beforehand. The Southerner and I both agreed that this was a very good start to our trip.

After Destin, we did the rounds through Mississippi, New Orleans, and Austin where we spent some much-needed quality time with more friends and family. Thank you, friends and family, for letting us stay with you and showing us such a great time!

From Austin, we made our way into New Mexico. Within minutes of crossing the border from Texas into New Mexico, the temperature dropped from 104 degrees to 54 and it started hailing. So, of course, because we’re Southern, we pulled the car over and took a video:

Aside from the whole hail thing, I was completely smitten with New Mexico. The closer you get to Santa Fe, the more spectacular the scenery becomes. Not to mention, all the cool museums to stop at along the way:

I’m slightly ashamed to admit that we didn’t actually go to the UFO museum exhibit, we just went to the gift shop. In our defense, the Southerner needed those sunglasses and we were on a tight schedule. And, no, we didn’t go to Carlsbad Caverns either. Stalagmite, stalactite, once you’ve seen one bat, you’ve seen em’ all, am I right? (Totally kidding). We had more pressing items on our trip agenda, like the amount of food I was preparing to ingest in Santa Fe. The Southerner may be a master road-trip planner, but I am a master food planner and there were about 100 restaurants, on a list I’d started creating months before our trip, that I wanted to eat at in Santa Fe.

Like these:

Coyote Cantina

This half-sandwich at the Guadalupe Cafe is bigger than my hand!

Pink Adobe Restaurant

And just in case you’re not truly getting it yet. Oh, yes, I am the type of person who takes video of an apple-pie: